Two Tongues

Sitting in the staff room in the morning, I am desperately trying to mark my way through a pile of Year 9 books which I dragged all the way home last night, dumped in a corner, and dragged back untouched here this morning. I hurriedly take bites of muffin and scalding swigs of coffee, as the clock shows my dwindling `free time’. The volume of the variegated babble around me rises and so does my stress level. Busy though my hands are I’ve acquired the brand new nervous habit of worrying at the ring on the fourth finger of my left hand with my thumb. The habit is new because the ring has only been on my finger since Guy proposed last night. No one’s noticed — why would they?
I pick up Brad Booth’s exercise book from the pile and flick through it in a fruitless search for the homework. The bell rings and I want to scream. But at least, thank goodness, I have my sixth form first thing, that is, the ones who have chosen to study French beyond the age of sixteen. They are almost human.
[private]I walk from the staff room to my classroom, register my form, and then I spend some precious minutes alone in the silent empty room. I use the time to wade through more fourth-form books while the sixth formers dribble in.
We talk for a while about youth and drugs, then I bury myself in the Year 9 books again while they do a pair-work exercise. But then a latecomer enter – Ayesha Macmillan.

“Sorry Miss, I had to see Miss Hitchcock,” she pants, depositing an art portfolio half the size of her body on one of the back tables. So, I need to tell her what’s happened in the lesson so far. We are supposed to talk to the pupils in French as much as possible, which I find difficult precisely because I am bilingual. Even with this wondrous sixth form I still have to trim and monitor what I say. I can afford to relax with Ayesha though. She has an Algerian mother (and a Scottish father). In fact, bilingualism aside, I feel a connection with her because my grandparents used to live in Algeria. I know she can understand everything I’m saying as her large blue-grey eyes focus unflickeringly on mine. I finish explaining and as she goes to the students’ table, I’m watching the way her black hair sweeps over her tiny shoulders. My interest in discussions about adolescent drug-taking has decreased considerably because the sight of Ayesha has triggered the memory of a dream I had last night. Odd, how a dream flees your mind, then you see someone who was in it and back it comes. I sit down at the teacher’s desk and hold a Year 9 exercise book pensively, replaying the dream that came last night after Guy proposed.

Yesterday last night, when Guy proposed, it was Valentine’s Day. Originally I had wanted to go out for dinner. Yet another place on Kilburn High Road had recently metamorphosed from a semi-derelict building with a palimpsest of tatty posters pasted onto its boarded windows into a freshly painted restaurant. A three-foot high Om is mounted in the centre of its canopy and the words `Om Shanti’ dance across the top in Hindi-style lettering. So, I suggested to Guy that we should book a table for two there for a Valentine’s Dinner, but he said, “Don’t worry sweetheart, I’ve got it under control.”
To be honest, I had forgotten the date by yesterday evening as I trudged gratefully home, still overheated and thirsty from double year 9 and with the carrier bag of their exercise books bashing against my legs with every step.
The gate leading into the scruffy patch of garden in front of the two-storey house where Guy and I have the upper flat is permanently stuck half-open (or half-closed). I slalomed my way through it and unlocked the front door. Having noted that there was no mail for me, I climbed the stairs. I first inserted the heavy silver key into the mortise lock and sighed when I realised the door was already unlocked, telling me that Guy was already home. This was confirmed by an overpowering odour that I knew pertained to some stage in the preparation of his chicken in white wine and grape sauce. That and chilli con carne constitute his complete cookery repertoire and I now remembered his comment about having “it” under control. What that had meant was that one or other of those dishes would be on the menu for tonight.
I wondered if I moved very quietly, whether I could escape down the hallway into the bedroom, close the curtains and go to bed. But he’d heard me, and now appeared in the doorway of the lounge/kitchenette wearing an apron my mother bought me but which I never wear.
“Now you just put your feet up, Sabrine,” said Guy emphatically, steering me through the lounge door and over towards one of the armchairs by the French window which opens onto a doorstep-sized balcony.
“You relax now, it is all taken care of. Here we are, your favourite, just the way you like it.” A cold glass of G&T on the rocks appeared in my hand, the same glass he gives me every night when he has arrived back before me, and always at the weekend. Everything in the flat seems to have been categorized into `his’ and `hers’, so that it would feel wrong for me to drink coffee out of one of the mugs that he always uses.
The whole room reeked of the white wine concoction. I guessed that it wasn’t the right moment to tell him that I’d never really liked it because it reminded me of sick.
I swallowed my cold, bitter drink and gazed at the early evening news on television. I tried to focus on the solemnity of violence and murder all over the world, but every time a new item started I realised that my mind had wandered away. I kept thinking: “Right, I must concentrate now,” but before I knew it my focus was gone again.
“Wow, that disappeared quickly,” said Guy, taking my empty glass and bringing me a second drink that I had not asked for.
“All taken care of, all doing very nicely,” he said, his aproned figure perching on the brother chair to mine for a moment.
Some time later he said, “A table,” in what he fondly believes is a good French accent. I know it isn’t fair of me, and that I’m incredibly lucky to have two native languages, but Guy’s voice makes me cringe whenever he tries to speak French. I can’t help it.
He’d covered the small pine table with a dark cloth, and now he switched off the overhead light to leave us sitting in the soft glow of candles. There was already a slice of melon on each of our plates, an item from his starters repertoire. My head was tilting from the gin and I was thirstier than ever. I stood up from the table again, but as I began walking towards the kitchenette, Guy said, “What darling, what is it darling, what can I get you?” and he shoved me back into my seat by the shoulders as I registered a plea for water.

“Water? — OK!” he said with emphatic enthusiasm, his tone conveying that the request was wholly unreasonable, but that because doing everything possible to please me was of such paramount importance, he would never even contemplate taking offence. So from then on I had a lightly fizzing glass of mineral water beside the glass of white wine that he kept topping up, and what with the wine in the sauce of the puke chicken dish the water did little to nothing to sober me up. Soon I was giggling at Guy’s anecdotes about how much his workplace reminded him of `The Office’.
Dessert was better. It didn’t come from Guy’s repertoire but was my favourite ice cream — vanilla with threads of caramel and little cookies. As I ate slow, indulgent spoonfuls I was dimly aware of Guy sitting restlessly opposite me behind an empty ice cream dish. I was so surprised that he didn’t offer me a second helping that I did not manage to forestall him before he had whisked my bowl away. All I got was yet more wine in my glass. And then Guy was saying:
“Sabrine, there’s something I need to say to you. But let’s — do it over here — .” He steered me back to the hers armchair by the window, and suddenly he was gone.

I looked up at the unquiet ceiling, vaguely thinking, “This is it. He wants to break up.”
I wondered giddily if I would have to fight to reclaim my contributions to the mortgage repayments the way my friend Jayne did. I had just started to think about moving in with Jayne when I realised Guy was kneeling in front of me holding a small velour box.
“… so I wonder if you would do me the great honour of becoming my wife,” he said, opening the box and slipping a ring with a solitary diamond over my finger. “Oh! A perfect fit,” he enthused. “How about that! I guessed! And it’s perfect!” And he’d got on top of me on the chair and he was kissing me. I drunkenly enjoyed the washing warmth of his tongue and then the view of the carpets and skirting boards sliding past as he carried me to the bedroom. I never said yes. I never even said yes and he didn’t notice.
The bedroom was orange and deeply shadowed in the glow of the lava lamp. Guy put on a CD of slushy songs and started unbuttoning my blouse. I was so drunk and relaxed that even Guy’s inept lovemaking felt good. I lay back on the pillows. Year 9 was forgotten, tomorrow’s lesson plans were forgotten, the diamond would have been forgotten had it not been for the unfamiliar, scratchy pressure I could feel between my hand and the mattress.
Afterwards Guy sighed, nuzzled at my ear and said, “I love you.” As he rolled over and started to snore, I thought, “Does he realise I didn’t reply?”

I woke up in the middle of the night with a headache and a terrible thirst. For a long time I couldn’t summon the will to get up, instead I scrunched my body into one uncomfortable position after another while the rhythm of Guy’s snores beside me never altered.
Finally I got up and took Paracetamol and fell again into an uneasy sleep. Then the alarm clock was buzzing. I located and pushed the snooze button but I lay there wide awake and realised to my amazement that I felt well.
Calm blue light filtered through the bedroom curtains and I was aware that I felt good because I had just had a wonderful dream, but already I couldn’t remember anything about it.
And now, some hours later in my classroom, as I look at Ayesha McMillan’s slender back, the dream returns suddenly into my mind. A flush jumps into my cheeks and neck and I am on my feet, pacing uncertainly across the room.

To begin with the dream had resembled the reality that had preceded it. I was lying on my back, listening to Guy’s snores. But then Ayesha was there too, long black hair swishing across bare breasts. She was kneeling beside me saying: “I know how I can help you.” And then she was in bed with me and making love to me in a way I hadn’t experienced in a long time, certainly not since I’d been together with Guy.
Now I understand why I was in such a good mood when I woke up. Moving to the teacher’s table so that I can see her from the front, I stare wonderingly at this girl from my dream and notice with fresh awareness the curve of her full, dark mouth and the creaminess of her skin. A silver squiggle around her neck is her name in Arabic and she’s wearing a tight pink T-shirt with a picture of a love-heart sweet and the words ‘Bite me’ across her breasts. The thought is so enticing that I’m getting aroused right here and right now.
Feeling the intensity of my gaze, Ayesha looks up at me and reveals her neat white teeth in a smile. There’s a puzzled yet conspiratorial expression in the slate-blue eyes, almost as if she can see every thought I’ve just had about her, as if she had been invited to a special private screening inside my head.
Still looking pleasantly surprised and amused, she tells me she believes they’ve said all they can on the subject I gave them to discuss.

The next lesson is free for me, a treasured opportunity to get something useful done, but my mind keeps skating away from work and I keep jumping up from my desk and wandering around the room. On one of these journeys I realise that Ayesha has left her portfolio on the back table and I flick through the sensitively detailed pencil drawings and lurid pastel sketches. As the bell rings and the fourth form start clamouring in I shove the pictures back into the folder and set it on the floor by my desk.
It’s during that next period that Ayesha comes to get the portfolio. My back is to the door and I almost don’t see her but start when I hear the squeaky gruff voice of Brad Booth say mockingly, ‘Bite me!’ I turn just in time to see the elvin figure disappearing through the door. Then she turns, and those eyes make direct contact with mine. I feel that her brief presence has provided a cool oasis in the midst of Year 9.
The day grinds on and at last it’s half past three and the school empties rapidly of children. I sit at the desk in my classroom feeling tired and dull, thumbing my engagement ring, trying to revive myself with coffee. Still though I’m riding a little on the buzz from that dream and the fresh feeling that the thoughts of Ayesha bring me.
I hear a tapping at the door. I wonder who it could be as the cleaners usually just barge in with their industrial strength suction equipment. My visitor is Ayesha – sans portfolio.

“Miss?” she says. The beautiful apparition in my dream had that voice, but it sounded a lot more certain and confident than Ayesha does right now. “Miss, I was wondering – ” Suddenly her face has turned from cream to burgundy as if red wine had been spilled beneath her skin. As pained by this as she is, I look away. But somehow she’s managing to keep talking.
“Miss, I wondered if perhaps you would like to have a drink with me sometime? In fact there’s a bar… we could go to… ” She’s put a little glossy flyer on my desk which proclaims: “Flossie’s Bar! Women Only!”
My thumb rubs at Guy’s obtrusive diamond. “Sure,” I say. “That’d be great.” And I want to hold her and stroke her luxuriant hair.
“Would you be free tonight, Miss?” she says, looking straight at me again. Some of the maroon glow remains near her hairline.
“Sure,” I say again, amazed I can talk normally as the adrenaline floods my abdomen. “Unfortunately I have a lot to do here. But I could meet you at Covent Garden in a couple of hours.”
Her teeth appear in a smile. Ayesha, says the Arabic necklace. Bite me, says the pink T-shirt.
“See you then.” Her voice now has more of the confident depth my dream woman managed.

After she leaves I am not sure I will spend the next two hours at all productively. I keep looking up from the desk and grinning manically. I pick frantically at the diamond with my thumb. And then, as my finger aches a little in protest, I twist and pull the ring off.
Yesterday was Valentine’s day and my boyfriend proposed, though I haven’t told anyone yet. Tonight, I have a date with one of my students. I will tell someone about that at some point.[/private]

Kathryn Lane’s stories have been published in collections and magazines including Venus and Vixen and Mind Caviar. Her novel Unknown Love was published by BiPress.